


surviving is an art that is painted across your body.

by dominical



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Child Abuse, Child Death, Graphic Description, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Character Death, Multi, Murder, Other, POV Second Person, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 21:16:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12992700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dominical/pseuds/dominical
Summary: You know that you were born a killer. You came into the world and slaughtered your mother with the simple act of existence.You are barely seven when you take your second life.





	surviving is an art that is painted across your body.

**Author's Note:**

> title is a quote from michelle k.
> 
> please enjoy my suffering, i'm sorry for it. nothing's extremely explicit but it's definitely mentioned so if it's concerning to you it's safer to avoid this fic. <3

You know that you were born a killer. You came into the world and slaughtered your mother with the simple act of existence.

You are barely seven when you take your second life.

It's easier than you thought it would be; you don't remember his name, but you remember his eyes. They were brown, deep and warm and very human. You remember how gentle he was. You remember watching him befriend the other children and thinking to yourself: ' _He will not make it.'_

He didn't.

That is the day that you learn of sentiment, of weakness, and how easy it is to kill another person. You watch the life drain from his eyes. Between one second and another, it's over, and you are no longer a child.

-

It gets easier after that, surprisingly. That boy from the cages was not the last. You need to _prove_ yourself to those above you, and you do. You survive. You are one of six children who survive the beginning --- (there were eighteen of you to start. you killed more than a few of them.) --- you learn to sleep with one eye open and how to hide a dagger when you have only rags to wear. You learn that only the strong survive, but that strength can mean many things.

Strength can be like yourself: you are sly, and quick-fingered, and you are slippery. Those bigger than you cannot hit what they cannot touch. Strength can be like the human boy, Taliesen (who you have not killed, because you like him, you think, and maybe he's a bit too much for you to handle): he is strong, and large, and hits harder than anybody else. He seems to like you, too, which is another thing you have learned. Sentiment is weak, but using it is not.

Together, you survived the trials, and now your real training begins. You are seven and a half, and you miss the brothel terribly.

-

You have an aptitude for it. You learn faster than most. Languages are fast to come, as is knife work and the athletics you must do. You learn how to handle more weapons than you can count on your fingers. You learn the secrets to locks and vaults and poisons. You learn that your mind is your best resource. You are not the best by any means, but you are surviving and that is enough.

You remember how to laugh and smile; for the human boy (his name is Taliesen and you know this, you know this very well, you whisper his name into his skin as he sleeps, the two of you huddled for warmth in a draft-ridden room) it is more difficult. He may never remember how to laugh.

As your body starts to grow, to shadow the adult that you are, your training continues to expand. You learn more of the pleasures of the body, of how to read a person's expression. It's fascinating to you: the tells, the flicker of an eyelid, the increased breathing, the rhythmic dance of the heartbeat. You know of these things already, as the brothel did not hide anything from your eyes, but you were never taught to use your body the way they want you to now. Sex is another tool in your arsenal.

The body willingly betrays itself and you are being conditioned to be the master of it. It is that simple. You laugh and you sneer at those who fail and are cut down. You have killed more than a few of your yearmates.

They did not deserve to live. It is only you and Taliesen, now. You have just turned ten years old, and you are proud.

-

You begin to struggle. It isn't that you are _bad_ at what you do, nor is it that Taliesen is holding you back. The two of you are attached at the hip, desperate for a connection to sustain you while you are broken down and reforged into a stronger weapon. It is as if you have run into a wall: the two of you are not stable. You're too much, all at once, and you are as likely to explode as you are to hit your target. They say it is a lack of talent. They say that, maybe, you are not cut out for this life after all. Maybe you should die like the rest.

And then _she_ is brought in.

She's elf-blooded, this you can tell right away. Her ears are not rounded like Taliesen's, and her nose is slightly too long for her face; her body is lanky and corded with young muscle, promising to fill out as she ages. Her hair is pitch black, long and silky, curling at its tips, accentuated by her high cheekbones and dusty skin. You are eleven years old, and you think you have fallen in love. Her name is Rinnala, though you call her Rinna.

It seems like a good thing, too, because she is trained with you, and the three of you improve exponentially. Something evens out, there, amongst the three of you. A two-legged table does not stand on its own. She is the stabilizing force that you needed. You find out that her mind is faster than yours and Taliesen's, and so she does most of the planning whenever you are given an assignment. It works out just fine, since you'd rather be mixing poisons and experimenting with the body, and Taliesen always had a preference for hitting things instead of thinking. (He never hit you, he never even threatened, and there's a trust to be found in that.)

-

You consider escaping to join the Dalish.

It goes about as well as one might expect.

“I've always been an elf of the city,” you laugh.

-

You begin to make the Arainai House proud.

This is important because if you do not please the Grandmasters, they will kill you. You think you enjoy living, so you please them as you can. You get better and better and better. You are sixteen, and you think you know everything. Maybe you do. You've never known anything else.

When it is time for you to become a full Crow, you are almost seventeen. You are excited to earn your wings. You have heard what happens to those who fail, and you have experienced it first hand. You have dealt out the punishment yourself. That will not be you and it will never be you. The Crows are all you have.

You lie down on a bloodstained wooden rack, and your hell begins. You can't hear Rinna or Taliesen.

It hurts. It always does. You are taunted, beaten, whipped, waterboarded, stabbed, and prodded. You are slapped, gouged, and berated. You are abandoned for hours, in the dark, with nothing to accompany you but the sound of your own breathing.

You recognize the techniques because you learned them yourself. The pain is worse than you could ever imagine, but you think of your wings and you think of your mother and her Dalish clan. You think of Rinna and Taliesen, suffering through the same, and you want to hold them. You must prove to all of them that you are strong enough to be a Crow, for weakness is unacceptable. Death is what the weak earn, and you are not weak. Grandmaster Talav saw something in you, in your cunning and wit, and he brought you here to become better. You are your own brand of strength: you have been tempered from stronger stuff than those who died and you _will_ succeed.

You do. When it is over, your wounds are tended to, and you get a hot meal. It is after your bandages are wrapped around your bleeding skin that the three of you fall into bed together. After all, when a battle is over, the adrenaline pumps through your blood and you _need_ a release. Why not your friends? The people you have been training with since you were a child? They are familiar, and comfortable, and it is exciting all at the same time. (It's more than that, and the three of you know it. There's always been a lot of love in your heart, but it's never been allowed beyond your hidden valleys. It is kept away, a secret, and even Rinna and Taliesen don't know how to draw it out, even if they wanted to.)

-

You have earned your tattoos. They accentuate your body: long, lean curves, flat planes, and hard corners. You are a whip of a young man. You can laugh easily, tease, flirt, and your smiles are quick and dirty. You make love to whom you please, and you are sent all over Antiva. You do not always succeed in the... typical way, shall we say, but you _do_ succeed. It is easy for you to fall in love with the gentle smile of a noblewoman, or with a mage escaping the City, or with the brightness of life, but no one has ever claimed you are a fool. You are a confident young man and there is nothing you cannot do. The Crows have your loyalty. They are the only family you've ever known.

(You remember the brothel. Of _course_ you do. It was home, it was family, but it was long ago, and you are a young man, now.)

You are twenty. The night terrors never stop, but you are taught to hide them. You can fake your sleep as well as anyone can, and now no one can tell; not even Taliesen and Rinna.

-

You are twenty-three and it is never easy to watch a love of your life slit the throat of another whom you hold dear to your secret heart. It is never easy to watch her bleed out at your feet, eyes open and unbelieving and accusing.

It is easy to laugh.

-

You are twenty-three and you want to die.


End file.
